


The Monster

by thegreatpumpkin



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-28 16:11:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5096954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegreatpumpkin/pseuds/thegreatpumpkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Children do not laugh when Maedhros Fëanorion draws near. But when he turns—slowly, idly, as if he is only observing the horizon—that is what he hears: the delighted, disembodied laughter of children.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Monster

**Author's Note:**

  * For [havisham](https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/gifts).



It begins when he is alone, with a soft twittering beside his ear.

Not a real bird-sound, not exactly, though it would pass for one if it weren't so close by. Instead, it reminds him of when Tyelkormo was on a hunt (or an ambush), signaling to one of them that the time had come to spring. It is the right tone and timbre for birdsong, but whistled through lips and teeth, not beak. Maedhros focuses his senses without obviously turning, concentrates on his peripheral vision, but there is no obvious source of the signal. When he does turn—slowly, idly, as if he is only observing the horizon—he hears the delighted, disembodied laughter of children.

It's been a long time since something could chill him the way that sound does. He's become resigned to horrors—what a hypocrite he would be to fear monstrosities when he is the monster responsible! But _innocence_...

Innocence has been a stranger to him for years beyond count.

Children do not laugh when Maedhros Fëanorion draws near.

The woods are silent; nothing moves. There is no ambush. He chalks it up to guilt, and regret—how can he not think of Tyelkormo when he is between the trees, his fallen brother whose territory was every haunt of bird and beast? How can he not think of the lost children, after his long, fruitless search?

He blames the weight of his conscience, and does not notice that his breath hangs icy-white in what was—a few minutes earlier—an unseasonably warm October day.

\-----------

Maedhros does not sleep these days. He toils, grim and gaunt and fell, until his body gives out; and then if he is lucky he has a few blacked-out hours before he rises and does it all again. Sometimes he can last nearly a week before he collapses. He is outrunning their faces, all of their accusing faces: every death he's ever been responsible for, friends and foes and strangers alike, their faces appear before him when he sleeps.

So he does not sleep. He organizes what men he has left; he follows rumors and whispers of what they seek, dead ends all, because there is nothing animating his limbs anymore except the Oath. It drives him like a cruel master drives a broken horse, scourging him whenever he falters.

As long as he doesn’t dream, he can escape the faces. He is tired, strained almost beyond endurance—but not mad. Some part of him is tempted to wish it were otherwise. The worst things he can possibly imagine have already come to pass; a break with reality might be a blessing, even if it were a tortured one. He is already tortured.

He is in the woods, this time, when his feet falter beneath him and then give up altogether. When he wakes in dim twilight, two small figures are leaning over him. He wonders how long he has been out this time; he apparently had the presence of mind to stumble into the shelter of a rock ledge, though he doesn't remember doing so. He sits up, and the small watchers squeal and scatter, laughing.

The hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and he wonders if his half-serious wish has been granted. Surely, by their faces, these are Thingol's kin. Surely, by their matched looks, they are the children he sought for so long in these very woods. They cannot be here now, though; so he must be mad, finally.

Their eyes glow in the darkness, like cats, and they creep back towards him slowly as if he is the mouse.

One of the boys stretches out a toe, nudging him almost imperceptibly before leaping back. "I touched the giant!"

His brother, not to be outdone, edges close again, peering skeptically at Maedhros. "He's not that giant. Great-grandfather is taller."

"Great-grandfather is an elf, though."

“So what’s this?” The skeptic snatches at Maedhros’ braid before darting back this time. His fingers go right through it; a cold breeze seems to whip down the back of Maedhros’ neck.

“A beast!”

“A monster!”

“An _orc!_ ” they hiss together, with the kind of spiteful glee that only children can master. For all they might be children’s taunts, the words have the weight of blows. Maedhros presses himself back against the rock and wonders why he ever thought his own mad imaginings would be kinder than the truth of the world has been.

“I am,” he agrees, his voice brittle as the dead trees overhead. “I am a monster. Is that why you ran from me?” What harm, asking these questions of his own hallucinations? They will only tell him what he already knows, the knowledge he already punishes himself with.

But the boys do not play along. “It talks!” says the first one, startled, and disappears behind a tree.

“We’re not afraid of you!” says the second, but he bolts away before Maedhros does anything else unexpected, putting the lie to his words.

Maedhros tips his head back against the stone and lets them go. He could never catch up with them; not when they were alive, not now that they are only in his mind.

(He is too distracted to notice the tiny, icy footprints in the dirt. Hallucinations do not leave footprints.)

\-----------

He doesn't see them again, or at least, not in their entirety. Sometimes at night he thinks he spots cat-eyes shining in the dark, but the lantern always reveals some explanation, some natural beast or simple trick of the light.

They make their presence felt, nonetheless.

Maedhros cannot remember ever being cold before his captivity. Afterwards the chill crept in often, settling in his bones like it was a part of him. Now he is a different kind of cold entirely; some nights he cannot stop shivering, and no number of blankets or fur will keep out the icy fingers on his neck.

They realize early on how uneasy whispering makes him; consequently, they whisper constantly when he is alone, just at the edge of his hearing. When he begins to adjust to the whispering, they laugh, but not the sweet eerie giggling of their first meeting. Now their laughter is a dark sound, sharp breathy wheezing on the edge of hysteria, made all the more terrible for being in children's voices. Sometimes Maedhros—even horror-hardened, battle-grim shell that he has become—is driven to tears at the sound. They laugh harder then.

They dog him when he hunts, when he fights, when he speaks; startling him at crucial moments so that his javelin goes astray, his sword barely blocks in time, so that his voice comes out thready and cracked instead of decisive and strong. Maglor notices the way his brother's hand trembles all the time now, but he knows better than to mention it. It is steady enough for what they must do, for even a diminished Maedhros is a fiercer foe than many elves in their prime.

At some juncture, Maedhros begins to believe they are true ghosts. Not because he has any proof—they trouble no one but him—but rather because it would be kinder if they were _not_ trapped here as bodiless spirits, and he cannot believe there is any kindness left in the world for him. Child ghosts are more awful than a monster's much-deserved madness, and so he must conclude that child ghosts is what they are.

Some men bend under pressure, and some break. Maedhros doesn't exactly do either; he stretches under the weight of all his wrongs, thinner and thinner until he is almost transparent.

Unbroken, perhaps, but he will never spring back into shape. This is all that will ever be left of him.

\-----------

He thought that was as bad as it could get, until the plans are made to move on Sirion.

At first there is only an escalation of their usual tricks. They whisper even when he is not alone, prod at his maimed arm with icy hands until it aches worse than usual, jog his quill and spill the ink relentlessly until he gives all of his correspondence over to Maglor's keeping. Of course they are angry—they have heard their sister's name, and they understand well enough to know that while they are beyond harm now, she is not.

When the muster continues, Maedhros begins to find his belongings out of place. At first he puts them back, but soon he gives up even trying, working with things wherever they are. It escalates from there; first things are more and more out of order, until it looks like a storm has blown through. Next small items go missing. At last, when the plans go on regardless, they try their hand at destruction: shredding his clothing, dumping his papers in the mud, shattering anything fragile that's unattended for more than a few minutes.

During the march, they badger and tease the horses mercilessly. If Maedhros were a poorer horseman, or his warhorse younger or flightier, he would have been thrown more than once. Even with his skills it is all he can do to keep his seat, and a pall settles over the riders closest to him.

It is the worst when he attacks.

Maedhros has been powerless before. His way has always been to stand still and let it pass, to wait it out, to turn to the things he might still control. His ghosts—these eternal tragic children—put him to shame.

They are powerless; they can do nothing; and still, still they try.

When he rides into the fray, they howl like creatures of Morgoth, an unholy wail of despair. (For the first time, Maedhros is not the only one who can hear.) They clutch helplessly at him with their empty, icy hands, tearing at his hair, trying in wretched desperation to prevent him from going forward.

Elured (when has he learned to tell them apart, and what by?) presses a tiny hand into his chest, sinking fingertips into his beating heart; Elurin wraps both hands around his throat, though they are too small to cover much distance. They cannot harm. They can only frighten. But still they try.

There was never any chance he would turn back, but they might have reached something in him, once. There is nothing left to reach now.

This is how Maedhros knows there is nothing left but the monster: his eyes are dry when his sword first tastes blood.

\-----------

Afterwards, they taunt him. They laugh at his failure, at their sister’s escape (they are only children, they do not understand that leaping into the sea is only delayed death, and he does not tell them). Their mockery feels like a kindness Maedhros does not deserve; he likes to hear them so pleased at his own expense, then feels guilty for feeling anything but misery.

His last remaining brother takes in twins of his own, nephews of Maedhros’ ghosts. Sometimes Maedhros helps with them, as if he could even begin to make up for what he has done; but his ghosts get jealous when he does. He cannot fault them—they are right that he has no business raising living children.

When next the Oath rears its ugly head, Elured and Elurin do something they have never done before. (It unnerves Maedhros, how they can learn and adapt and yet never _change_ , stuck in time as they are.) They _weep_.

Maedhros has grown used to their whispers, their laughter, their taunts; used to the way their presence sucks all the warmth out of him and leaves his teeth chattering; even used to their temper tantrums, when his few remaining belongings are scattered and destroyed. Strange, for two small children left to die in the woods, that he has never heard them cry before, but he hasn’t. He has no defense, no armor, against their sobs.

Still, the Oath drives him. One last push to pay for all; they will recover the two Silmarils that remain, and then it can finally be over. (He whispers this to them in the dark. They cry on.)

It is never so simple. It will never be over.

But when he at last holds one of his father’s masterpieces in his hand—when his skin begins to blister and char—two pairs of tiny, icy hands hold it with him. He cannot bear it for long, but it is bearable for just a little longer.

And when he stands at the precipice, Elured yanks at his hair, while Elurin drags at his ankles.

They cannot stop him. Somehow it makes it worse that they try.

\-----------

Everlasting darkness is more peaceful than Maedhros could possibly have imagined.

There is no more Oath; the worst has finally come to pass. There is no one else to hurt. The world is safe from him now, and it is a blissful relief.

He is contained, apart, quarantined. Like a fire deprived of oxygen, he has finally been denied the fuel he needs to destroy.

At least, he thinks so, until a tiny hand slips into his. (How can that be? He has no hands here, no form, no self.)

On the other side, another hand slips into his. (How can that be? Even if he had form, that hand is gone, left on a mountainside.)

Was it not enough that they died for his mistakes? They should be in Mandos’ care, or better still released from his Halls. This—the darkness—is no place for a child.

“Hello, monster,” they whisper together, and it breaks what is left of him.


End file.
